features of the modern bee because these have to do only with the conditions of life which exist in the colony in its present form. It is obviously absurd to maintain, for instance, that all the highly specialized instincts incident to queen production, queen attendance and the like were functionally produced through usage before there was any queen to produce or attend, while on the other hand, the very necessity of queen production and maintenance is the outcome of the infertility of the workers. Some workers have been known to lay eggs, but as these are few in number and are never fertilized, which means if they develop they can only produce males, they can play no considerable part in inheritance. ORIGIN OF NEW CHARACTERS =Origin of New Characters in Germinal Variation.--=This brings us to our last query as to whether the appearance of new characters can be explained on any other or any more inclusive ground than that which infers that changes undergone by the parent-body are in some way registered in the germ-cells so as to be repeated in a certain measure in the body of the offspring. The answer to the question of how inheritable variations do come to appear in offspring if not through changes produced in the body of the parent, is uncertain; nevertheless most biologists believe that they do not have such a somatic origin but arise directly as germinal variations. Some would attribute them to the fluctuating nature of living substance in general. The instability of protoplasm is one of its striking characteristics. It is constantly being broken down and built up, or, in other words, undergoing waste and repair. Like all other protoplasm, that of the germ-cells must also undergo these metabolic changes and it is possible though not proved that in this give and take of substances small changes occur in their constitution which find expression in the offspring as variations. As already seen, substances in the blood other than food may also affect the constitution of the germ-cells.